


Memento Mori

by hopelessbookgeek



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2745512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelessbookgeek/pseuds/hopelessbookgeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As of July 2012, the seven members of the Fake AH Crew worked together in perfect harmony. There was the Boss, the Screw-Up, the Demo Expert, the Hacker, the Weapons Specialist, the Sniper, and the Getaway Driver. Now, as any good leader knows, there's one archetype you can't avoid in this business: the Renegade. And that would be where Ryan Haywood came in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Many and Many a Year Ago

**Author's Note:**

> THIS story, if nothing else, will post regularly, because I already wrote the whole thing, so expect about a chapter a week. I hope you like it! Please consider reviewing, it means a lot!

As of July 3rd, 2012, the criminal gang who called themselves the Fake AH Crew could count among them seven members. Lucky number seven, they’d say sometimes, usually when they’d completed a successful gig and were drunk on the euphoria (and the alcohol. Dear God, so much alcohol). Any other time they were far too cool for such a phrase. The Crew was made up of only the most quintessential of members working together like they were seven parts to the same body:

Geoffrey Lazer Ramsey, grizzled captain of the Crew, complete with the almost required tattoos and handlebar mustache. Gavin Free, his right-hand man and frequent winner of the “most arrogant despite being a constant fuck up” award (it’s very prestigious). Michael Jones, demolitions expert, never happy unless the fire from an explosion was echoed in his eyes. Lindsay Jones, who could hack anything with the same amount of speed and enthusiasm as she could find cute cat videos on YouTube. Jack Pattillo, with a seemingly endless supply of cars, bikes, and Hawaiian shirts. Ray Narvaez Jr., wisecracking sniper and pot dealer on the side. Kerry Shawcross, who could find and provide any weapon, if he had any money left after the near-constant muggings that occurred whenever he left the house.

Yes, they were an almost perfect team, but what Geoff didn’t think about was that there was one archetype that no criminal gang is complete without, the type that brings the highest winnings and the highest degree of danger, the type that would shake things up as easily as shaking a snowglobe: the Renegade.

And that, ultimately, would be where Ryan Haywood came in.

****

“Renegade” wouldn’t be quite the right term, of course. The rumors never quite fit the reality, and you don’t recruit your renegade from an IT job. About half of the members of the Crew had side jobs; the lesser-known members could still live in normal society without fear of getting shot, and it brought some extra money in. Besides, when you’re lower on the totem pole, you don’t need to spend all your days planning the next big heist. Michael, Gavin, and Geoff had that one covered.

Lindsay, as it happened, fixed computers, because it was easy and she liked it and computers were fun. (Lindsay finding so many things “fun” was always cute until you found out what else that list contained. At one point when some creep wouldn’t stop sending her naked pictures, she figured out where his parents lived, broke into their house in the middle of the night, and changed every screen in their house to different pictures he’d sent. According to Michael she’d never stopped giggling the whole way through.)

She usually had to share a workroom with a number of other people, but this time it was just one other man. She’d seen him around before, but he did hardware, not software, so they didn’t usually spend time together. He seemed nice enough, usually smiling, even if it didn’t always reach his big blue eyes. _James_ , his nametag read. It was shaping up to be another average day at work until _he_ burst in.

Who he was didn’t really matter. Lindsay thought she recognized him, but he was just some goon. He could have worked for anyone and she’d probably have run into him at some point or another. He was dressed conspicuously enough in jeans and a hoodie, but the gun in his hand was anything but nondescript. “Lindsay Tuggey?” he said, clenching his hand around the gun a little tighter.

She barely had time to panic before James, on the other side of the desk, stood up. “Whoa, whoa, put that thing away before someone gets hurt,” he said with just a touch of a Southern accent. “We don’t want anyone making mistakes here, now, do we?”

“Beat it, man. You’re not a part of this. This is between me and her.” He gestured and Lindsay with the gun and James moved towards Lindsay faster than a blink. He shoved Lindsay into the doorless coat closet to her left and stood in front of it like a human shield. 

“Well, since you couldn’t wait until I left, I suppose I’m involved now, aren’t I?”

“What are you _doing_?” Lindsay whispered to him.

He crossed his arms like a bouncer. “I’m not gonna have your death on my conscience. My morals don’t really allow for harming innocents.”

Morals? Fuck, this guy had some balls. He hadn’t really stopped smiling either, but it didn’t look pleasant anymore, it looked like a warning. Lindsay groaned internally, thinking of all the times Michael had begged her to take at least a pistol or something to work and all the times she’d refused, saying she’d never need it. She’d hate to have to tell him he was right.

The guy with the gun stepped closer. “I’m gonna give you one chance to get the fuck out of my way so I can shoot this bitch. After that, not really my fault what happens to you.”

James sighed. “Such language. Filthy.” He reached out grabbed the guy’s wrist, twisting it so quickly to the left so that Lindsay could hear the snap. He shouted and dropped the weapon, which James picked up. “I’m a fair man, I think, so I’ll give you a chance to tell me what you want and who you’re working for and then we can go our separate ways. What do you think?”

The guy let out a string of swears so filthy Lindsay hadn’t even heard Michael say most of them. She stood up, brushed some of the dust from her pants, and watched as James whipped the gun across the guy’s face so hard it broke his nose. “Not that it matters,” she whispered to the guy, “but my name is Jones.”

He looked up at her with a sneer and spat blood at her feet. James shook his head and shot the guy point-blank. When the guy was definitely dead, he clicked the safety on and tucked the gun into his belt. “Shame that things had to get so messy, but I did warn him. I don’t suffer rudeness well.”

“I can see that. Wow. That was crazy! Where did you learn all that? I mean, why did you think to do that?”

“Here and there. You’d be surprised what you can learn when you have to. And I always sort of figured I’d need to.” He held out his hand. “Lindsay… Jones, you said?”

“Sure am. You’re James?”

“You can call me Ryan.”

“Okay, Ryan… when you do get off work? I have some people I’d like you to meet.”

He grinned and fixed his tie. “How about now?”

****

Since Ryan had caught the bus to work, Lindsay drove him back to the communal house where the Crew members lived. They used to live separately (Geoff still misses the mansion he’d had built on the outskirts of Los Santos), but it got too dangerous after a while. Ray kept accidentally starting gang fights and Kerry, of course, always got mugged. It was still a pretty big place, an apartment building that Geoff had bought and vaguely converted. They each had their own floors, technically, but rarely stayed there; Gavin preferred Geoff’s guest room and Lindsay and Michael lived together now.

As they walked up to the front door, Ryan squinted to read the faded letters that had been penciled in above the doorway. “ _Memento mori_?”

“It’s kind of our motto. One of the guys put it up there as a joke– which is only funny if you’ve never heard a joke in your life– and it kinda stuck. It means–”

“Remember you will die,” Ryan said softly, and Lindsay cocked her head.

“Damn, so you know Latin too? Do you think everyone at the company is a criminal mastermind?” It was a joke, but Ryan looked surprised.

“I’m not a criminal,” he said, blinking. He seemed to mean it, too. Lindsay didn’t say anything, because how do you tell someone that killing a man means that yes, you broke the law? “Besides, it’s a common enough phrase. Are you going to be surprised that I know about _carpe diem_ too?”

“Alright, smarty-pants. Keep it cool.” She pressed the intercom button for Geoff’s apartment.

“Y’ello?”

“Secret Geoff, this is Eagle Two. Got someone I think you should meet.”

“If it’s not the Chinese food guy, I don’t want to meet him.” He rang Lindsay in anyway, and she took Ryan up the somewhat rickety old elevator to the penthouse.

She wondered what he was thinking when he looked at everything. Did he see the security system that had taken hours and thousands of dollars to install, or did he see the cigarette burns on the wallpaper and the worn spots in the carpet?

They knocked, Gavin let them in, and then she didn’t have to guess what he thought, because he gasped quietly, probably without knowing it. She had to admit, Geoff’s apartment was _nice_. The television was fifty-some inches, there was more than one cabinet filled with crystal decanters of expensive liquor (though Ryan didn’t see the fridge filled with cheap beer), and the leather jackets strewn over the dining room chairs were clearly real.

Geoff was reclining on the couch, Xbox controller in hand, but he put it down and stood up when he saw Ryan. “Hey, kid,” he said to Lindsay, but he never took his eyes off Ryan. “This your guy?”

“Sure is.” She saw Michael appear around the corner, looking curious, and smiled at him. “Guy came at me with a gun, Ryan here took him down. Put some real moves on him.”

“Moves? Like in a gay way, or…” Michael said.

“No!” Ryan said, a little quickly. Lindsay made a mental note to keep quiet about Michael and Gavin in case he was a homophobe.

Michael held his hands out. “What can I say? No one says ‘put moves on’ unless they’re talking about sex. What the fuck were you thinking, Lindsay?”

“Sorry, man. I’ll get my thesaurus next time.”

“Fuckin’ better.” He folded his arms and nodded that Geoff could keep talking.

“So you think this guy is good enough for us?”

“I mean, I don’t know for sure. I’ve never been on a heist with him, but he’s definitely worth a trial run.”

“Wait, now… heist?” Ryan furrowed his brow. “What is this?”

Geoff turned to Lindsay, eyebrow raised. “You took him here without _telling him_?”

“What was I supposed to say! Hey, we’re the most infamous gang in the city, want to come help us kill people and steal things?”

“Yeah, that would’ve worked!”

“Whoa, now…” Ryan took a step back and held up his hands like they were going to attack him. “You’re the Fake AH Crew, aren’t you?”

Lindsay nodded. No point in lying now. “Sure are. But I wasn’t serious about the ‘kill people’ thing. We try not to kill that many people, although some of us,” here she fake coughed, “ _Ray_ , are worse than others. You don’t get to be as good as we are by killing everybody. You get into it for one reason.”

“To be richer than Midas,” Ryan guessed, and he sounded intrigued.

“ _Midas_? Dude, this is 2012. You can say Bill Gates,” Geoff said. “Wanna give it a try?”

“Being in a _gang_? And to think that was the one thing I promised my mother I’d never do when I moved here…” Everyone noticed that he didn’t say no. When voices started to echo from the other room, Michael waved them in to see the rookie. Gavin returned from the kitchen holding a beer and Jack and Ray stood behind Michael. “Look, I don’t know that I can do this. I’m a good man. I couldn’t hurt anyone…”

“Didn’t you kill a guy, like, an hour ago?” Michael commented.

“Self defense! He was going to kill Lindsay.”

“You said you thought you might need those skills at some point,” Lindsay reminded him. “Might as well put them to good use. Money, infamy, people to hang out and play video games with.”

“Don’t forget the women just tripping over each other to get to you,” Ray said.

“Ray, please, you have to pay for them,” Michael said, and Ray had to laugh.

“Yeah, how’d I forget.”

“Scores of women aren’t really my thing,” Ryan muttered, and Lindsay understood. Seems Geoff did too.

“Scores of men, then. Whatever. Point is, give us a try. We’re a good team but I think we’d be better with you in it. At least a test run. You want out after that, fine, if you keep your mouth shut.”

Michael frowned. “Geoff, c’mere a sec. Are you serious about this guy?” he asked quietly. “You just met him. We’ve always been a team of seven, we’ve got things covered. One more guy is one more chance that the cops are gonna get to us. What is it about him? Why are you risking this?”

“I dunno, man. It’s just a test run, we’ve done them before, and Lindsay’s a good judge of character. We’re a good team, but we could be great. We could pull off the heist of the century with this guy.” He shrugged. “Besides, you know our motto. Risks are worth taking, right?”

Michael sighed. “You’re the boss.”

“Damn right.” He turned back to Ryan. “Job’s yours if you want it.”

“I…” He swallowed and looked at Lindsay, who nodded encouragingly. “I can give it a shot. Just a trial run, mind. Hm. This wasn’t how I expected my Thursday to go, I’ll admit.”

“Well, I didn’t expect to almost be shot on my Thursday,” Lindsay responded. “Gotta get used to the unusual here! Oh, and if you’re going to be hanging with us, I’ll introduce you. I’m Lindsay, that’s Geoff, the guy who started the Crew, that’s my husband Michael and his boyfriend Gavin–” Gavin raised his beer to Ryan “–Ray and Jack–” Ray saluted, Jack said hello “–and there’s also Kerry, but I don’t know where he is.”

“He’s upstairs,” Gavin provided, and Michael snorted.

“He’s upstairs being unhappy because _you_ sent him out for more beer _and he got mugged_. How many _fucking_ times do we have to tell you to stop sending Kerry outside?”

“I wanted bevs! None of you wanted to go out–”

“Here’s a good piece of advice, asshole, stop getting drunk at three in the afternoon on a Thursday. How about that.”

Ryan had to hide a smile. Maybe this was a good decision after all.


	2. Highborn Kinsman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw the comment calling last chapter "cute"... and while I appreciate that, I warn you now. Brace yourselves.

The first heist with the new team member would be a simple one: convenience store. Geoff called up Ryan just that morning and told him so. He’d have explained the whole scheme if not for the near-deafening sound of Michael screaming at Gavin in the background. More than once Geoff had to sigh deeply over the line, excuse himself, and half-cover the mouthpiece while he bellowed back, “ _if you fuckers don’t shut the hell up I’m gonna shove my boot so far up your assholes you’ll be tasting leather for a month!_ ”

It didn’t work. Nothing ever did.

Still, Ryan packed a bag for a few days and hopped the subway to the downtown apartment. Geoff rang him up, and thankfully all was silent when he got upstairs. “Michael cooling down in his place?” he asked, dropping his bag by the door. Geoff was in front of the fridge, digging through Styrofoam take-out containers for something to eat. So focused was he on his task that he didn’t even look at Ryan.

“Heating up, probably.”

Ryan cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“He’s probably got his dick balls-deep in Gavin’s ass, is what I mean. That’s how they always make up.”

Ryan wrinkled his nose. “I couldn’t count the amount of years I could have gone without hearing such a… graphic description of that.”

“You think you got problems. Gavin sleeps in my spare room half the time and sometimes they do it here. I soundproofed his room for that reason.” He sighed discontentedly and shut the fridge door, straightening up and finally looking at Ryan. “What the _fuck_ are you wearing?”

“What?” Ryan looked down at his clothes. True, he wasn’t dressed as casually as Geoff, who was in loose jeans and a threadbare t-shirt, but he thought he looked alright. “It’s just jeans…”

“And a _button down_. Kid… We’re planning a heist, not going back to the office.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t really plan for this, but we have to go shopping. You’re gonna make us look bad. You at least need a jacket to cover… that up.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Geoff made a cross with his fingers and held it out towards Ryan. “Yes, it’s _that_ bad.”

“You’re talking a lot of shit for a man with a My Little Pony keychain.” Ryan gestured to the set of keys on the table, and Geoff rolled his eyes.

“Michael gave it to me, alright? Besides, it’s Fluttershy. Alright, get the fuck out of my way so I can change my shirt. Unlike you, I have standards.”

Geoff came back out in a _Halo_ shirt and tugged his leather jacket on over it. “I prefer to do my business in a suit, but I’m goin’ casual today,” he explained. “Also I’m way too drunk to tie a tie.”

“You don’t seem drunk.” Ryan had to slow his long strides to keep pace with Geoff as they went to the elevator.

“Good rule of thumb, rookie. I’m usually drunk. I’m not sure this apartment has ever seen me sober for more than twenty-four hours, and it would be even more than that if I didn’t like being sober for heists.” He hit the ‘down’ button a few times rapidly, as if that would make the elevator come faster.

“That can’t be healthy.”

“Listen, buddy. I’ve lost enough that I don’t care about my liver anymore, alright?” For the first time, he sounded serious. Or rather, a very specific kind of serious, almost pained.

“Oh, like your mansion?”

Geoff looked surprised at that and almost forgot to step into the now-open elevator. Ryan stepped in next to him, and then they were on their way. “Who told you about that?”

“I mean, you talk like you haven’t been in the apartment long, and a lot of it looks recently renovated. And besides, everyone knows about the huge-ass mansion on the outskirts. It’s tagged with all this anti-Crew graffiti so I figured it had something to do with you.” Geoff looked at him intently so he shrugged. “Every time I go out of town to visit my mom I see the thing. Hard to miss.”

“Yeah, something like that. Don’t miss anything, do you? Good to know.” They were quiet the rest of the way down and didn’t talk much as they went to the store. Geoff ended up buying Ryan an armful of “cooler” shirts (to Ryan they were just t-shirts, albeit some with absolutely rad flaming skulls on them) and a blue-and black leather jacket that Ryan slid on and promptly refused to remove. On a whim, he bought a mask, too, a black one that looked like a skull and covered his whole head.

By the time they got back to Geoff’s, most of the others were there. It scared the hell out of Geoff, who’d forgotten he’d given Jack an extra key, and he needed a moment to catch his breath. Michael looked a lot more relaxed than he’d sounded earlier, sitting on the couch and letting Lindsay turn his curls into tiny braids. Jack was playing cards with a round-faced kid, who appeared to be losing badly, if gracefully.

“Ryan! Digging the jacket,” Gavin called, trying to wave but doing so with a hand that was intertwined with Michael’s.

“Give me my hand back,” Michael said with a laugh, and Gavin disentangled them and bounded to Ryan’s side.

“I see Geoff took you shopping. Not really surprised. He did the same with Kerry.”

“Oh, is that Kerry?” He looked around Gavin to the mousey-haired guy frowning at his cards. “What does he do around here?”

“Weapons, mostly. You wouldn’t _believe_ the things that guy can get! Once he got us a flamethrower, but I gotta tell you, I wouldn’t recommend trying to make s’mores with it.”

“No?” Ryan laughed. “Why’s that?”

“Singed my eyebrows off. Oh, Michael was so mad, the mingy bitch.”

“The _what_? Mingy…”

“Right.”

“You know what, fine. Mingy bitch. Awesome. So, uh, did Geoff tell you the plan yet? For the heist?”

“Oh, not yet, but it’s just a convenience store. Easy.”

“Easy my ass,” Ray said, sitting with his feet up on the table, DS balanced in his lap. “Last time, you drove a _fire truck_ directly into a _gas tank_. You’re damn lucky you didn’t kill me. You’re damn lucky I didn’t kill you!”

“Oh, that was a year ago. You love me.”

“You’re not wrong, but it’s only because you keep losing bets against me. Last count, you owe me $450, ten Junior Cheeseburgers, and a blowjob.”

Gavin winced. “Thought you forgot all that.”

“Tell you what. I’ll knock off five of the burgers if you bring me a Dr. Pepper right now.”

“Top!” Gavin went off to the fridge, and Ryan fiddled with the pockets on his jacket.

“Alright, bitches.” Geoff clapped his hands and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him. “Let’s plan a heist.”

*****

The plan was a simple one, ultimately. It put Ryan right on the front lines, exactly where he needed to be to make things work out. Geoff would cover him while he got the money and killed the clerk, Ray would pick off the cops from the rooftop across the street, Michael would be ready with a bike to pick up Ryan, and Jack would be a few streets away with a car, which would be more cover than the bike. Gavin would split the cash with Geoff immediately so in case something happened to Geoff, some of the money would be safe. This was business.

This was the most common kind of heist for the Crew, something that happened sometimes up to once a week, because it was easy and fast and usually yielded about $1200. Best of all, it was just a convenience store hit, so the cops wouldn’t look too deeply into it. Los Santos was a dangerous city.

“Why are there even any convenience stores open?” Ryan mused to Geoff while they were buying ammo. “I mean, if they get hit this often and clerks drop like flies, why would anyone do it?”

“Lot of druggies in this town, and coke don’t come cheap. Ever meet a meth addict? They don’t give half a shit if going into work tomorrow will get them killed as long as they can get high as Heaven tonight.”

 _High as Heaven_ was an oddly poetic way of phrasing it, and Ryan got the feeling Geoff had heard the phrase from someone else.

When he said so, Geoff gritted his teeth and tugged his mask over his face. “Got it from an ex,” he said, voice muffled but strained. Before Ryan could ask anything else, or maybe apologize, Geoff spoke again. “C’mon, kid. Let’s go. We’ve got a job to do.”

The professional versions of the Crew members were a lot easier to be around than their casual counterparts. Michael was quiet, focused as a laser beam, and Gavin only accidentally smacked Jack on the back of the head with his gun once. Lindsay and Kerry were safe at home, and Michael looked a lot more relaxed for it. “It’s not that she can’t handle herself,” he explained before, “but I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her.”

“Let’s do this,” Geoff said, and they all separated. He let Ryan lead him into the store, skull-mask obscuring his face.

“Good morning, darlin’,” he said to the girl working the counter. She stared at him blankly, eyes glazed. “I’m going to need you to hand over all your money, if you would. No, actually. You will. Now, please, before the cops show.”

She looked at his gun and then back up at him. “Are you gonna shoot me?”

“Not if you do as I say. Money, bag, to me, _now_.”

Geoff wasn’t so patient. “Hurry the fuck up! I don’t have time for this!”

She started putting it in, ever so slowly. She was stoned out of her mind, far as Ryan could tell, but at least she was listening to them. Still, it was taking too long, far too long, and he fired a warning shot. She paused for a moment and looked at the hole in the wall where the bullet hit. “You missed.”

“Oh, did I?” He fired again, this time grazing her shoulder just barely, just enough to make her yelp and widen her eyes. She looked at him fearfully and dumped the rest of the money back in the bag, tossing it to him. “Now here’s how this is gonna go, sweetheart. You don’t call the police, and if my friends and I need to come back and take more at any time, you’re going to let us with no struggle. If you don’t play by the rules, I’ll be back, and it won’t be your arm my bullet grazes. Are we quite clear on that?”

“Y-yes,” she said, swallowing hard.

“Thanks so much. Have a great evening.” He waved Geoff out of there.

“What the _fuck_ was that, Haywood? Why didn’t you kill her? She could have pulled a gun on us!”

“I know her type. I don’t kill people I don’t have to, and besides, you now have an all-you-can-rob buffet. Fear is a valuable intimidation tactic.” Ray buzzed over the radio then.

“ _Hey guys? Everything alright? I don’t see any cops. What’s the holdup_?”

Ryan answered. “Nothing wrong, Ray. Everything went as planned. Handing off half to Gavin now, we’ll be on our way soon enough.”

It went beautifully. Gavin took the cash, Michael drove them to Jack, and they all met up about half an hour later at the base of Mount Chilead. Not a single cop car was in sight. There wasn’t a single hitch in the plan, except for where all the potholes in the old back road they were using meant they needed to pull over so Ray could vomit in the bushes.

Geoff pulled his mask off and smoothed his mustache. “I’ve got to say, that… went better than I’d ever have imagined. Not a single fuckup.”

“There wasn’t a chance to fuck up. We didn’t need to speed, cops didn’t show. Nothing happened,” Ray said, and the others murmured their agreement.

“Well, you know Gavin. He’d have found a way.”

“Hey!”

“Either way, we took a nice cut of $1309. Or $1409, if you think Gavin is a better counter than I am. A good chunk of change either way, and no one had to die.”

“What?” Michael said. “I heard two shots. Is the clerk alive?”

“Warning shots,” Ryan clarified. “Clerk’s fine, if scared.”

“Alright. Not the way I’d have done it, but if it works, it works. I’m going to get so goddamn stoned I’m floating on the ceiling. Ray, you got anymore of the good stuff?”

“Yeah, you have to pay for it this time, though. No more freebies. I’m running a business here.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“A bitch who’s the only pot dealer you know. Pony up, asstown.”

They went their separate ways, then, on the car and bike they brought with them. Geoff and Ryan who decided to stay on the mountain for a while, were allowed to keep the other bike so they could get back. Geoff held out a cigar he’d kept in his pocket and, after a moment’s hesitation, Ryan took it. The sun was starting to set, and they watched the neon lights start to click on.

“You asked about the mansion,” Geoff said quietly, breathing out a ring of smoke. Ryan tried and failed to imitate him. “This isn’t the kind of thing I like to talk about, but everyone else in the Crew already knows, and if you’re going to be part of us– and the job’s yours if you want it– you might as well know, if only so you know what I don’t want to talk about.”

“Job accepted,” Ryan said, just to make it clear.

“Right. Welcome. So, when I said ex before, I meant ex-wife. Name was Griffon, I built the mansion for her, to show her that what I was doing had perks to it, that she didn’t have to work anymore. That I could be good enough for her.

“Well, I wasn’t. Never was, never will be. She already hated that I ran the Crew, didn’t like any of the other guys except maybe Gavin, and then I… well, y’know. I fucked it all right up. Hazard of this job is it’s dangerous, and you start looking for a way to cope. I found heroin.”

“Hell, Geoff… She left after that?”

“Nope. Tried to get me in rehab, tried to help me any way she could. I didn’t want help. People get addicted for a reason, y’know? It felt good. I felt good. Felt good enough that I stopped thinking and brought home this woman, maybe twenty-something, and Griffon… well, we were in the main bedroom. The room I slept with Griffon in. Not really surprising she found us.”

He sighed deeply and puffed on the cigar for a moment. “She brought something home too a few days later: divorce papers. And I signed ‘em, cause God, I wasn’t so fucked up that I didn’t know what I was doing to her. Quit heroin after that, found other vices. Never found another Griffon, though.”

Ryan put a hand on Geoff’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he said softly. Geoff only nodded in the way you do when your throat is too tight to speak.

“Want to know the worst of it, too? Didn’t even tell the others this one. She was pregnant when she left. I’ve got an eight-year-old daughter out there somewhere I’ve never even seen.” He looked at Ryan with weary blue eyes. “Let me give you some more advice, rookie. You want to be rich? You want to feel important? Fine. But this job is gonna bleed you dry and you’re gonna beg for more, because it’s gonna fuck you up in the head.”

“I don’t–”

“If you want to feel good about yourself,” he continued, as if Ryan hadn’t spoken, “you walk away from here right now and never call me again. If you want to fall in love, you leave. If you ever want to be happy, Ryan Haywood, leave right now.”


	3. Not Half So Happy in Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy almost Christmas! Enjoy sad boys.

One month and three weeks after their first heist together, Ryan picked up the phone and dialed Geoff. Before either of them could say hello, there was Gavin in the background, calling ‘ _Geoffrey Lazer_!’

Geoff sighed deeply. “ _Gavin, you’re twenty-five years old. One important rule of etiquette you should have learned by now is to STOP BOTHERING ME WHEN I’M ON THE FUCKING PHONE._ ” Gavin went silent. “Hello, Ryan,” Geoff said then, perfectly amicable.

“Good morning, Geoff. Got some good news for you.”

“Yeah? Suck any good dicks last night?”

Ryan had learned to judge Geoff’s mood by how often penises came into the conversation. No dicks, bad mood. Someone else’s dick, good mood. His own dick, excellent mood. He had to smile. “Oh, I wish. No, just found out someone bought my place. I can move into your building within the next few days.”

“Ay! Nice! Hold up a sec.” There was the sound of trying to cover the mouthpiece. “ _Hey, assholes_ ,” Ryan could hear Geoff yell, “ _got a new neighbor. The rookie’s movin’ in later._ ”

There was the general sound of agreeability and Geoff was back on. “They’re absolutely fucking delighted. Come by whenever, we should plan a heist to celebrate. Or just get drunk.”

“Why not both? I’ll be by. See you, Geoff.”

“See ya, rookie.” They both hung up, and Ryan began to pack. He didn’t own much, it was a tiny place and most of his stuff was in storage or with his mother, so ultimately he ended up with two boxes of clothes and a whole lot more boxes of computer parts. He packed a bag with enough for the next few days– until he could work out how to get everything to Geoff’s– and his heist clothes, and hopped on the metro line. After a moment’s hesitation, he got off on the stop before the one closest to Geoff’s.

This stop was a lot closer to the convenience store they’d hit on their first heist, and after ducking into an alley he slipped his leather jacket on over his t-shirt and tugged the skull mask over his face. At the bottom of his bag was a gun and he tucked it into his belt.

The girl working the counter was the same one as before, blonde and sleepy-eyed, but when she looked up at him her eyes snapped open, alert and ready. “I can call the cops right n-now!” she warned, sending darting glances behind him and clearly noting his lack of backup.

“You can, but you won’t,” he said smoothly. It was what he called his _sympathy_ voice, low and warm with a touch of the South in his tone. “You know how this goes as well as I do, hon. Just a few hundred, I know you’ve got it, you don’t even have to give me all of it. Five will do. And then I’ll be on my way, and I don’t even need to use this.” He patted the lump under his jacket where the gun was.

She was trembling but obeyed. “How do I know you ain’t gonna shoot me anyway?”

“Why, my dear, I wouldn’t do that. It’s just not right. I’m not gonna hurt anyone unless they hurt me first. Which is why we have this little agreement, isn’t that right?”

She handed him the money and he tucked it into his pocket. “I guess this could be worse,” she said softly, and he almost smiled.

****

“Geoffrey Lazer,” Ryan boomed as he stepped through the door. Geoff had given him a key even as he said he’d regret it someday. “I deserve a kiss for this.”

“Yeah? What’s up?” Geoff came around the corner, beer in hand.

Ryan pulled his hand out of his pocket and let the twenties fall from his fingers like snowflakes. “I’m here to make it rain. Ever managed five hundred on a solo mission?”

Five hundred wasn’t so much in truth, but in a town where every clerk and cashier had a shotgun stashed under the counter, getting anything all without backup was almost a miracle, and Ryan didn’t have a scratch on him.

“Oh, shit, dude…” Geoff bent down and quickly counted the bills. “That’s… Fuck, Ryan! Alright, you earned it.” He pulled himself to his feet and planted a smacking kiss on Ryan’s cheek, which made Ryan blush. He hadn’t thought Geoff would do it, but he certainly hadn’t minded. “Now I don’t do that for just anyone, so you’d better not get used to it.”

“Yeah, you gotta work your way up the ranks,” Ray said from the doorway, quirking smile on his lips. “Most of us are still at blowjob level. If Geoff kisses you it’s a mark of high honor.”

“Cause it’s not gay unless you kiss,” Geoff clarified, and Ryan raised his eyebrows. “So says Gavin anyway. It’s not gay if you say ‘no homo’, if you don’t kiss, if the dicks don’t touch, or if you’re in a three-way.”

“Uh… Solid rules, I guess?”

“Not that I care, but, y’know, Gavin. Spent almost ten years deeper in the closer than fuckin’ Narnia. Go ask him right now, he’ll tell you he’s straight, he just hasn’t found a woman he likes yet.”

As was the habit when Ryan showed up, the others started clustering around the doorways. In this case it was only Michael and Lindsay. Ryan nodded at them. “That true for you too, Michael?”

“Hey.” He made a finger gun in Ryan’s direction. “Polyamorous bisexual and don’t you fuckin’ forget it. Broke Gavin’s nose for being rude about it, too.”

After that he turned and went back into the other room, leaving Ryan to furrow his brow in confusion. He didn’t get the full story until later, when the whole Crew was in Geoff’s living room, surrounded by empty pizza boxes and scattered beer cans. “It was the first time I’d met him,” he said. “First day on the job. I was here, s’pposed to go on a practice run with Geoff, but he was out somewhere and running late so Gavin was talking to me instead. Well, he was a little drunk and started asking all these personal questions about things like my sexuality.”

“I wasn’t _that_ drunk,” Gavin protested.

Geoff rolled his eyes. “Please. You started crying when I came home because you thought I was Gary Oldman.” Gavin reddened, and Michael let out a harsh bark of a laugh.

“Anyway, he pretty much called me a slut for being bisexual, so I broke his nose.”

“Is that why it looks like that?” Ryan couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“Looks like what?” Gavin asked indignantly, and Ryan just shook his head. Geoff laughed that near-scream of a laugh, genuine and bright, which made Lindsay smile.

“Oh, nothing,” Ryan said, leaning back in his chair. Lindsay patted Gavin’s hand gently, they drank, and after about an hour, Michael and Gavin were both pretty drunk.

“Michael, you’re the _best_ boyfriend,” Gavin slurred, dropping his hand to Michael’s shoulder. “An’ Lindsay, if I liked girls you’d be the _best_ girlfriend.”

Ryan looked at Geoff with pleading eyes, and Geoff stood up only a bit shakily. “Alright, let’s go check out your place. Let’s get away from them.”

Lindsay was sober, so they left the boys with her– Ray had long since skipped out– and went down on the elevator. “Are they always like that?” Ryan asked and Geoff sighed.

“I don’t know. Yes and no. They just want to relax between heists, which means the same kinds of relaxation techniques, or whatever. Gavin gets loud, Michael gets aggressive, Lindsay gets happy, Ray disappears to play games or look at porn or whatever.” He shrugged. “Long as they’re happy, I guess. And if they get too fucking annoying I kick ‘em out.”

“Ah. Alright.” The floor that would be Ryan’s apartment was in worse shape than any of the rest of the building he’d seen so far. It was dingy, musty, with scuffed wallpaper and faded carpets. A single working lightbulb flickered reluctantly to life when he flicked the switch. “Very fitting for a criminal organization.”

“Not gonna let you slum it, dude. We’re going more for _The Godfathers_ than _West Side Story_ here.”

“You’ve seen _West Side Story_?” Ryan asked, amused.

“I’ve seen a lot of things. We’ll plan a big heist one of these days, get the money together to redo this shit properly. You’re gonna love big heists, dangerous as dicks but fun as all hell.”

Ryan touched one of the walls, the wallpaper rough under his fingers. “Well, then I don’t have to feel so bad about using the walls for target practice.”

“Uh, I would really recommend not doing that. I hate to be the adult in the group, God knows, but firing weapons in here is…”

“No, I know that.” He pulled a little throwing dagger from its place on his belt, where he always kept it, and held it up for Geoff’s approval before throwing it almost casually so it stuck in the wall. “I like knifeplay.”

Geoff’s eyebrow raised. “Kinky.”

Ryan reddened. “No, I, uh… Not like that.”

“Hey, none of my business what you’re into.” He seemed abnormally jittery all of a sudden, arms folded and fingers tapping rhythmically on the inside of his elbow. Ryan remembered the heroin and wondered if going for a hit was his automatic response to a boring or shitty situation. He wanted to ask if Geoff still missed it after all this time but he didn’t think he wanted the answer.

“How good is heroin?” he blurted out, and immediately regretted it. Geoff’s eyes flashed like lightning through bottle glass and his fidgeting stopped until he was still as a hunting cat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t–”

“Best thing I ever felt,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “and I hate myself for it. All this time later and I love that damn syringe more than I could ever love my wife.”

“I didn’t mean to ask,” Ryan said quietly, pulling his knife out of the wall and twirling it between his fingers, just to have something to do. “We can forget about it…”

“Everyone gets curious. Been asked that question more times than I can count. Only one who’s never asked is Jack, ‘cause he knows.” That was surprising. Jack was… well, Ryan didn’t want to call another dude cuddly, ‘cause… that’s fucking weird, but if he were going to use it to describe anyone, that someone would be Jack, chubby and bearded.

More than that, though, Ryan was furious that he’d allowed himself to say shit like that to Geoff, because Geoff had given him everything, given him a place to stay and a group of friends and the chance to work out his frustrations and danger-seeking in a relatively healthy and productive manner. Geoff had trusted him with a gun and bought him all new clothes. Geoff was looking at him with eyes so sad that Ryan just wanted to comfort him…

“I learned how to work a knife because it feels good to use it,” he confessed quickly. Geoff looked at him sideways. “You told me so many personal things, figured I’d repay the favor.” A single nod told him he could go on. “I got beat up a lot as a kid for being shy and as a teenager for being, you know… For liking guys, so I learned to fight back, and… I liked it. A lot. More than people should enjoy hurting anyone, and that was scary as all hell, so I have my moral code because that’s what it’ll take for me to not become– someone I don’t want to be, I suppose. They say good men don’t need rules, you know.”

“And you’ve got many.” Geoff looked as though he understood the feeling. No one had ever understood before, except bullies and sociopaths. Was Ryan a sociopath? Maybe, but he liked to think he was more than that, too. Geoff looked as though he understood that too.

“Yeah,” was the only thing he said, because he couldn’t bring himself to say everything else.


	4. Many Far Wiser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooh, gettin' to the good stuff. Enjoy!

Two days after that, Geoff locked himself in his apartment and refused to let anyone in. Ryan was concerned (and not only because before his apartment could be renovated, he was staying in Geoff’s spare room), but Jack assured him that this wasn’t at all uncommon. “He’s planning a heist.”

“We’ve planned heists together before. Why is this one different?”

“Well, this one’s a big one. He never lets any of us in on a big heist, not during the planning stage. He knows best. He’d be insufferable about it if he weren’t always right.”

Ryan sighed. “I suppose. He’s going to be alright in there, though, isn’t he? Half the time he doesn’t remember to eat unless one of us reminds him…”

“Trust me, kid. He’s been doing this a lot longer than you have, and almost as long as I have. I trust the guy. He’s never failed us before.”

“I’m not saying he’s going to fail us, I’m just _saying_ –”

“No, I get it. You’re saying that you’re frustrated because you want to be in on all of this and you aren’t. Well, sorry to say it, but tough shit. It’ll get done when it gets done, and not before. You don’t want to rush him. It’ll only piss him off, and anyway, even if he did rush the plans, he could make mistakes. Mistakes in a small heist, that’s fine, might set us back an afternoon and some bullets but nothing else, but you fuck up in a heist like this, you’re going to get shot by the cops and the bail money is ridiculous.”

Ryan gave up. What he’d been trying to explain was that he just didn’t like the idea of going a few days without seeing Geoff, and that he didn’t know why the guy couldn’t take a few minutes for a beer on the balcony, but it didn’t sound like Jack wanted to hear it, and besides, he wasn’t sure that he it was something he really wanted to explain anyway.

He liked to think he’d done a pretty good job so far of hiding his feelings for Geoff ever since he’d recognized them. That had been an adventure. Sure, the guy had given him everything and he smiled like they had some secret inside joke, but he was thirty-two, and thirty-two year olds don’t really just _fall in love_ , especially with someone they aren’t even dating, especially with someone who is kind of their boss, really not their type, and definitely straight.

(Well, he wouldn’t say _definitely_. He reasoned that no one who talked so much about dicks could possibly be totally straight, but Geoff said nothing, so he wasn’t going to make assumptions.)

Without Geoff or his apartment, the others were forced to hang out elsewhere. Generally they switched around, but they seemed to prefer Ray’s place more than the others, probably because he always had weed, even if, he confessed to Ryan, he didn’t smoke the stuff himself unless he was on the verge of a panic attack. “I’d be kind of a shitty salesman if I smoked all my own product,” he said. “Also it makes everything feel too soft. I don’t really like it.” The other popular venue was Jack’s, because he always had food and kept the place the cleanest.

With Geoff out of the room, the others, as it happened, liked to talk about him in ways he wouldn’t normally put up with. Occasionally this talk turned to the ways that the others had met him.  
“I was an electrician,” Michael explained when it was just the two of them. “Not a great salary, Lindsay and I were engaged, and I wanted to provide for her. Once she figured out where I was going and what I was doing, she insisted on joining as well. I was pissed. She was pregnant at the time.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you had kids,” Ryan said.

“We don’t,” Michael said shortly, and Ryan shut his mouth.

“You’ll _never_ guess how Geoff met me,” Kerry said, rolling his eyes.

“Let me guess. You were being mugged and he stepped in.”

“Nope! Geoff was the one mugging me. Knocked me right over and stole my wallet. He only came back because I had about two grand on me and he was impressed that I’d gotten so much money, and wanted to know how. Never did give me back my wallet, though. You ever been to the Los Santos DMV to replace a license? Zero out of ten, would not recommend.” Ryan laughed, and even Kerry had to crack a smile at the memory. Ryan didn’t doubt that even at the time, Kerry didn’t stay mad for long. He was one of the most good-natured guys Ryan had ever met.

“I was the guy who got Geoff into the business in the first place,” Jack said. “He always needed money, I was tired of handing it over, so, you know, teach a man to fish and whatnot. Worked well enough, he’s better than I am now. Not that I care. Never liked planning heists, myself. I can do anything now.”

“No one knows what Gavin did to get into the Crew,” Michael said, when Gavin was in the bathroom. “He’s been here longer than any of us except Jack, but even he doesn’t know why he’s here. Do you, Jack?”

“No sir. No idea.”

“Right. We’ve been thinking blackmail for a while, but I’m not sure what he could have on Geoff. Geoff doesn’t hide much, he’s pretty open about all the embarrassing and stupid shit he’s done in his life. Once you openly share that in one night you pissed yourself in public and then sucked a dick for money, you can’t really be hiding much, right? And Gavin can’t keep a secret when he’s drunk, except this one.”

“I like the amount of thinking y’all have put into this, but have you just asked Geoff?”

“No, Ryan. We’ve been wondering this for years and it never occurred to us to ask Geoff why Gavin is here.”

“Oh. Well, keep that in mind, next time.”

“Keep what in mind?” Gavin said, strolling back in and wiping his hands on his pants.

“Never mind,” Michael and Ryan said at the same time, and they shared a knowing look. Gavin looked confused but otherwise said nothing.

“So, Ray,” Ryan said later, “I’ve heard everyone’s story but yours. How’d you get here?”

He shrugged. “Not really a good story. Just answered a Craigslist ad.”

“Geoff put out a _Craigslist ad_ for a Crew position?” Even as new to the Crew as he was, Ryan understood exactly how important secrecy was to the group. One wrong choice of member and the cops would be pounding on your door before morning. The kind of people who usually answered Craigslist ads weren’t really the kind of people you usually wanted in your secret criminal organization. “Don’t only perverts use Craigslist?”

“Yeah. I wondered why he’d sign a job advert with “Daddy Geoff” but, you know, money’s money. I didn’t get here by asking too many questions.”

“Here being where, exactly?” Michael asked with one eyebrow raised.

“Jack’s couch, with a Hot Pocket in my lap. Specifically, I didn’t ask if I could take this Hot Pocket from his freezer, and yet here it is, entering my mouth.” The others couldn’t really help but snicker at the turn of phrase, and, knowing that, Ray made a bit of a show blowing the thing before finally taking a bite. “Jack might kill me for this later,” he mumbled around a mouthful of burrito, “but it’s like Geoff says, right? _Memento mori_. Or like I say, _YOLO_.”

Jack shook his head with a long-suffering look on his face. Ryan smiled, just a little. Of all the filthy degenerates he could have fallen in with, he was glad it was this bunch.

*****

Five days after the beginning of his hibernation, Geoff finally retreated from the cave of his apartment, opened up the windows, and allowed the sun to shine. With a routine phone call of “get your asses up here now”, Ryan allowed Jack to shove him off his couch and back up to Geoff’s, where they all gathered around to listen to the heist plan like children waiting for a bedtime story.

“We haven’t done a big heist in a while,” he started by saying, “and we’ve never done one with Ryan, but I think we can pull this off. We’re going to hit…” He pulled a sheet dramatically off an easel, revealing a map of the city. “The bank.” He jabbed his finger at a red circle downtown. “I know we tried this once before, but I think this time I have it right.

“Now, before we even get there, we’re going to need Lindsay to get into their security system so that she can shut off their cameras and alarms when we need ‘em to be off. Any estimate on how long that could take, Linds?”

“Dunno. Few days, maybe? No more than a week, probably. None of the other systems around here are that intense, but I figure, you know, a bank.”

“Great. So, you’ll be on that before the heist. Kerry, we’re gonna need as much ammo as you can get for every gun we’ve got so far, legal or not. And distractions. Fireworks guns?”

“Ooh.” He winced. “Not gonna come cheap, especially after we almost burnt the place down last time…”

“Cheap isn’t a problem. This could be, genuinely, the take of a lifetime. I promise. Jack, can you get us a couple of bikes and a helicopter? Probably a few other cars as well, but nothing special.”

Jack thought for a moment. “Should be doable. Enough inventory lists, though. C’mon. Let’s get through the plan first and then we can decide what we need to get.”

“Right, right. Alright, so here we go…” He pointed at the map again, as though any of them could read it. “Michael, you and Lindsay and Gavin will be our distractions. While Ryan and I are in the bank, you’ll be halfway across town, blowing shit up to keep the cops off our asses. Ray, you’ll be up on the building across from the bank, sniping. Jack, I’ll need you to be ready to drive a getaway car; I’ll have the money when we leave the bank, so you take me immediately and Ryan, you grab a bike and follow. It’s best if we’re not all in the same car, right?”

As he continued to explain the plan of how he and Ryan would, exactly, rob the bank, and what Lindsay, Michael, and Gavin would be doing elsewhere, the mood palpably fell. It wasn’t the usual seriousness, either, although some of that came into play. It was something a little bit more raw, a little closer to fear, and maybe that was common when planning big heists, but the rapid reddening of Michael’s cheeks and the equally rapid paling of Ray’s seemed to say otherwise.

After Geoff finished explaining how Jack would pick them up in the chopper and they could all converge on Mount Chilead for beers, there were a few moments of silence. Ryan was still trying to process the scale of this plan when Michael spoke up. “Didn’t realize you hated us so much, Geoff,” he said. He was clearly trying for levity but his voice was honey over steel, only a few decibels away from being cold rage.

“Listen, I know it could be tricky, but we’ve done a million heists together. We know how well we work together.”

“Yeah, I know how well I work with you all, but you have me trying to cover Gavin and Lindsay’s backs for ages at a time! I’m good but I don’t think I can keep all three of us safe while they burn shit to the ground.”

Geoff tried to soothe him. “You _are_ that good, Michael. You’ve covered all of us for years, and I know you want to keep them safe. You can absolutely take care of this. The cops won’t be too worried about you guys, and you won’t be connected to the real heist at all.”

“You’re saying they won’t recognize us? That’s kind of a risk. Look me in the eyes, Geoff, and tell me that my wife’s life is worth hinging on that possibility.” They locked eyes, and Geoff was the first to look away. “Right. Lindsay shouldn’t even be out there. God knows Gavin is good enough at destroying things on his own that he doesn’t need help, and she’s already doing the hacking, and–”

“Hey,” she said, settling a hand on his thigh, her braid brushing his shoulder. “Trust me, okay? I can do this. You can do this and I can do this. We’ll be alright.” Gavin, on her other side, squeezed her hand, and she smiled.

Michael growled low in his throat. “I trust _you_ ,” he said, “I’m just not sure how much I trust this plan. I won’t let anything happen to you, Lindsay. You’re too important to me. I’ll keep you safe whatever it takes.”

“I know. We’ll be alright.” After that he clenched his jaw and stayed silent. She asked so little. He could do that for her.

No one else voiced complaints, but it was clear that they were just as worried about the success of this heist as Michael was. Ryan put his head in his hands. Maybe they couldn’t do this after all.


	5. Dissever My Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some ~things~ happen. Enjoy!

The week leading up to the heist was one of the quietest and most stressful Ryan had ever known. It was in his nature to seek out solitude when he was distressed, so that he could reconcile himself with his deepest nature and sometimes, when things got really bad, with God. He wasn’t religious, per se, and even though he’d been raised in a conservative household he was pretty sure he was an atheist, but old habits die hard, and when he thought about what the next weekend had in store for him, he instinctively bowed his head and made the sign of the cross.

Geoff caught him once. They were out on the balcony, looking at the sun rise on the Vinewood sign in the distance, and Geoff was smoking a cigarette. He mentioned off hand about the renovations they’d be doing to Ryan’s place with the heist money, and without even thinking, Ryan made the sign of the cross. Geoff looked at him funny. “You religious?”

“Oh. Not really. Old habit.”

“Does it help? Make you feel any better?”

“Sometimes. You should give it a try.”

Geoff shook his head and tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette before taking another long drag. “Heaven can’t help me now,” he breathed in a cloud of smoke, and Ryan didn’t press it.

It surprised him, given his own almost antisocial nature, how much the others very much did not want to be alone. Michael slept on Geoff’s couch nearly every night, claiming his apartment felt too big without Lindsay in it. Ryan had to ask Gavin where Lindsay was before Gavin explained that she had to be in the general area of the bank to try and get into the system, and that hacking wasn’t done over the internet. Ryan tried to claim that he already knew that (and he did; you don’t work IT without knowing that much at least, even if he was hardware) but Gavin didn’t buy it. He didn’t blame him. He wouldn’t have believed him either.

Michael and Gavin spent all their time together, fingers wound together like rose vines. Each was the sun around which the other’s Earth could constantly revolve. Ryan was kind of fascinated; he knew about polyamory, but he’d never experienced it firsthand. Truth be told he’d always sort of believed you couldn’t love more than one person, not in the ‘true love’ sense, but if he didn’t already know he could never have told you who, of Lindsay or Gavin, Michael was married to, and he couldn’t imagine anyone loving anyone the way Michael loved both of them. For all that he was all fire and fists, Michael was as fiercely loving and loyal as he was, in general, fierce, and everyone knew it.

There weren’t really many secrets in the Crew, come to think of it. No one knew why Gavin had been hired, but other than that, no one kept a whole lot to themselves. Secrets in such a tightly knit group would only wrench them apart, and yet…

Well, Ryan hadn’t told anyone his secret yet. Did they notice the way his eyes slid over Geoff like waves on the shore, or did they think that, indeed, when they clasped hands by way of greeting it lasted just a touch too long? Could they tell that Ryan wanted to know what Geoff’s mouth tasted like beyond whiskey and smoke?

After all, he’d read once that it was common, expected, and encouraged for Ancient Greek soldiers to be lovers, and that it was thought that because they had such a strong bond they’d be more willing and able to protect each other. Did the others know that Ryan would burn down the world so that he could dig Geoff out of the ashes?

Jack turned to cooking for most of the week. Instead of ordering take out like they’d done most every night, he’d make food from scratch even when most of them didn’t have the appetite to eat much. Ryan always did, and so it was common for him to spend an hour or so a night in Geoff’s enormous kitchen, sitting on the counter with Jack at the stove. “Geoff taught me how to cook,” he explained once, rolling out dough for homemade ravioli. “He’s a lot better at it than I am, but he only cooks when he’s happy.”

In the month and a half Ryan had known Geoff, he’d never seen him so much as microwave leftovers.

There was a kind of softness to Jack that made Ryan wonder why, exactly, he’d gotten into this business in the first place. “How old were you when you got your first kill?” he asked, spooning up one of the cooked ravioli for a taste test. Even out of the Crew, it was a dangerous city. You didn’t have many people who could make it to thirty without at least being involved with a death of some sort.

“Never killed a man,” Jack said as Ryan had to put the ravioli down because it was too hot to eat. “Getaway driver, man.”

“You’re part of the most dangerous gang in the city. You’ve had cops elbow deep up your ass. You’ve never killed anyone?”

“Never needed to, never wanted to. There’s this sort of… bloodlust, I guess you’d call it, that comes on you in the heat of the fight. Geoff gets it, Ray does, sometimes Gavin does. You’d think Michael would but he gets cold instead. Me? Nothing. I’m just doing my job. That’s actually what I told Geoff when I introduced him to the Crew– I’ll die for you, man, but I won’t kill for you.”

Ryan thought about the first man he’d ever killed, at twenty-one. He slit the guy’s throat and the blood spilled over his hands and splattered his forehead and it felt like a baptism.

He didn’t want to talk about that, so instead he asked about Kerry. “I never see the guy. I feel like I barely know him. Is he coming out with us on Saturday?”

“ _Kerry_? No, Kerry’s a total redshirt. He’s not going anywhere. He’s off making shady weapons deals, I’m sure. He looks unassuming but that works in his advantage. People sell him the weirdest shit for pretty cheap because they assume he’s just some stupid kid who’s gonna get himself blown up. He’s looking for a firework gun, so God only knows when he’ll be back.”

_God only knows_. What was Ryan supposed to do if God didn’t know either?

On the night before the heist, everyone was in the living room, playing poker and tossing back beers. Kerry was back and must have learned something from the time Ryan first met him, when he was losing to Jack, because right now he was (in Gavin’s words) absolutely _rinsing_ them. Ray was the only one not in attendance, him and Lindsay, but even that changed when, at ten to midnight, Lindsay walked in the front door with tired eyes and messy hair, and Michael jumped up and kissed her like it was the only thing keeping him alive.

Ryan took the opportunity to step out on the balcony for a bit of fresh air, only to find Ray with a joint in his fingers and faraway eyes. “Lindsay’s back,” Ryan said, and Ray nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off the mountains in the distance. Ryan took a seat beside him and gestured at the joint. “Thought you didn’t like the stuff.”

“I don’t really,” he said, a little slower and deeper than normal, although maybe that was the solemnness in his throat instead of laughter. “I used to have this girlfriend with anxiety. She used to say that she had worry pressed to her heart like iron. Never really knew what she meant until now. Maybe things being too soft isn’t the worst thing.”

Ryan had to agree, and so when Ray handed him the joint, he took it, and maybe that was the only thing that could give him the courage he needed to do what he did next.

He went inside, to where Gavin and Michael were huddled around Lindsay like penguins and Jack was back in the kitchen making waffles, and asked Geoff if he could have a word in private. “Yeah, alright,” Geoff said and yawned. “Fuck, dude, I’m tired as dicks.” Despite the usual levity in his tone, his eyes looked even more tired than Lindsay’s.

They went into Geoff’s bedroom. Ryan had never been in there before, and it was surprisingly plain. “Geoff,” he started in a low voice, and he cursed himself for making the word sound like a psalm, “tomorrow… The plan will only work if everything goes perfectly, and we can’t count on perfection.”

“You can’t, maybe. We’re good. You’ve seen us, and I know how we all work best. I know how we can do big heists. The last heist on the bank failed, but–”

“But other than Michael’s perfectly reasonable objections regarding protecting Lindsay _and_ Gavin, you’ve given me nothing. I’m left after Jack picks you up, surrounded by cops with no protection. If you wanted me dead, you could have just said so.”

“I did _not_ leave you nothing,” Geoff said in a voice so quiet it was scary. “You’ll have Ray sniping, and after we get out of the fray, I’ll leave Jack to get away and I’ll be coming back on foot to help you get out of there. You’ve got the best protection there is. If nothing else, _you_ will live.” There was something funny in his voice.

Ryan wasn’t convinced. Ray was good and he himself was almost better, but the two of them against a legion of pissed off cops? The motto of the LSPD might as well have been ‘shoot first, ask questions later’. That was what they were up against. “Then it’s not murder, it’s suicide,” he said in just as low a voice, and Geoff went silent. “Geoff…” He touched Geoff’s tattooed arm and the other man flinched away. “Before we die, maybe, you should probably know–”

“Don’t ask me to do this,” he said, and Ryan wasn’t even sure that they were talking about the same thing anymore. “Not here, not now, not again.”

“Then when? Time’s a ticking bomb, Geoff Ramsey.”

“This isn’t– this isn’t the kind of thing I do. You know my motto.”

“I do. Do you know mine?” Silence. “ _Memento vives_ , Geoff. _Remember you are living_.”

Geoff let out a string of curses so virulent that Ryan hadn’t even heard some of them before. “Then kiss me before I change my mind, you fucking asshole piece of shit.” Ryan did, and as it turned out, below the whiskey and smoke Geoff tasted like blood, metallic and sharp. It wasn’t really a pleasant kiss– too hard, too full of teeth– but if he was gonna die tomorrow, tonight he was gonna live. Geoff’s stubble was like sandpaper on Ryan’s jaw and maybe if they kissed hard enough he could scrape away all his sins.

“What do you want?” Geoff mumbled between kisses.

“I want to live,” Ryan muttered back, and even he didn’t know if he meant tonight, tomorrow, forever, but Geoff’s hands were already at his belt and his heart was in his throat and so what did it matter?

The Crew worked together so beautifully that it was almost a dance, perfectly choreographed, and inside and out it was art. Ryan might have expected something so much more intimate and so much less coarse to be music, to be elegant, for them to find a perfect harmony and for Geoff to kiss a sonata down his throat and for crescendo to build naturally. Real life is rarely so neat, however, and Geoff’s nails dug in a little too much and he never found the same rhythm as Ryan and it was all stuttering hips and broad workman’s hands trying to find purchase and the ugly, permeating sense that maybe Ryan was just too old for something like this.

Later, when they reached a climax that was satisfying if not ecstatic, Ryan accidentally breathed out “I love you”.

Geoff didn’t hear, or maybe he only pretended he didn’t.


	6. My Darling, My Darling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh... sorry.

Everyone woke early the next day. The heist wasn’t until sunset, but no one could sleep anyway (mostly from the nerves, but around four in the morning when Michael and Gavin started going at it in the spare room, Geoff and Ryan couldn’t ignore it). Surprisingly, they all seemed a little more normal than they had over the past week; Jack’s pancakes came from a mix and not from scratch, Lindsay was laughing, and Kerry was half-heartedly trying to explain to Gavin that no, he _doesn’t_ know what “mullered” means.

So when the sun rose over Los Santos at 6:22am, the Fake AH Crew was gathered around Geoff’s dining room table, still in their pajamas, nursing cups of coffee, and if anyone saw Geoff slip a miniature bottle of something into his cup, they said nothing. _So much for sober heists_ , Ryan thought to himself. Geoff wouldn’t look at him.

The most dangerous gang in the city, the one that made the police department swear at length when they heard the name, the fine-oiled machine of hardened criminals, were playing keep-away with Kerry and the maple syrup while Michael plaintively wailed the lyrics to some Hilary Duff song. Lindsay was curled up on his lap and held Gavin’s hand.

“You look cheerier,” Ryan said to Michael, who whose descent into lyrical madness was interspersed with shoveling pancake into his mouth.

“Got a plan,” he mumbled around the breakfast. “Gotta protect Lindsay, right? Easy.”

“What about Gavin?”

“Yeah, what about me?”

Michael rolled his eyes. “You’ve been in the Crew for over eight years. You don’t need my goddamn protection. You just need to follow my instructions and my lead and you’re fine.”

Eight years. Ryan knew it, on some level, because Geoff had said his wife knew Gavin and she left eight years ago, but he’d never really thought of it like that. Gavin joined the Crew when he was a teenager. These people were so good at their jobs that Ryan often forgot how young they were. Ray might have graduated college only two years ago. Five years ago, Michael couldn’t legally drink. Kerry looked young enough that maybe he still couldn’t legally drink. Christ.

Even the oldest members of the group, he and Jack and Geoff, seemed… Well, maybe they just hadn’t lived enough. What had he ever done before the Fake AH Crew? Jack had never married, Geoff had never met his daughter. Suddenly he could feel everything he’d never done sown into his skin and it burned.

They spent most of the rest of the day around the table, playing cards, eating, anything that they could all do at once together, because team-building was essential to the functionality of the Crew or because they were afraid some of them might not make it out or because, like Ryan, they couldn’t bear to be alone with their thoughts.

“Lads and gents,” Geoff said around six in the afternoon, standing and putting his hands on the table. “It’s time. We reconvene in a half hour.”

Like the well-trained soldiers Ryan so desperately wished they weren’t, they stood and went off to their own rooms to dress for the heist, Ryan among them. His things were all still in Geoff’s spare room, so he grabbed what he thought were the clothes least likely to be mocked: dark jeans and boots, a t-shirt, and his black-and-blue leather jacket. Admittedly the t-shirt had a cat face on it, but no one would know under the jacket.

He went into the bathroom to get one last look at himself before the mask was on. He looked older, and he looked tired, but in a horrible, twisted way it suited him. The dark circles under his eyes brought out how bright blue they were, and the two days worth of stubble on his chin made him look rough. He looked a long ways away from the man in a necktie who saved Lindsay’s life that day in July.

On the counter was a jar of black greasepaint, and Ryan dipped his finger into it to smear it around his eyes. “Gotta put on my war paint,” he muttered to himself. Now, under the mask, all you would be able to see is the whites of his eyes and the pupils, animalistic and blown in the darkness. He didn’t look like himself anymore, so he turned away, pulled the black skull mask over his head, and walked away from the mirror.

The others were already in the living room, and like Ryan each of them were wearing their leather jackets, despite the warmth of the room. Even Jack wore his, over his Hawaiian shirt. They wore them like armor. Ray had his lucky red rose pin clipped to his lapel and Michael wore his wedding ring on a chain around his neck. “I can’t take the risk of losing my hand,” he’d explained once. “Only way anyone’s getting this now is if I lose my head, and at that point I might have bigger issues.” Gavin wore mirrored aviators, even inside and near sunset.

Geoff came out then, and of all the things Ryan expected to see, Geoff pulling a full James Bond with a perfectly waxed mustache and an elegant, perfectly-fitting tuxedo was not one of them. “You’re gonna run from the cops in _that_ ,” Ryan said. It was only half a question.

“I’m pulling off the heist of the century here, damned if I’m gonna do it looking like a bitch. Ride in style, die in style, that’s the motto.”

“Too many mottos around here,” Ryan muttered, and Geoff shot him a sideways look but said nothing.

Kerry spread out on the couch. “I spend so much time here alone. Geoff, can I get a dog?”

“Yeah, what do I care? We can go when we get back. Alright, bitches, let’s get out of here. We’ve got a heist to do.” There was no prep work this time around; Kerry had already loaded the weapons into both Gavin’s car and Jack’s, and Jack had called in the chopper to be on standby. Everything was ready, but Ryan’s heart was a ball of worry like knotted yarn. “Guess this is just never how I expected to spend a Saturday evening,” he said when he slid onto the bike next to Ray, on his own. Everyone else was packed into the two cars.

“You get used to it.” Ray was quiet. “You know I’m not gonna let the cops get near you, right?”

“What?”

“Well, that’s what you’re worried about, right? That after Geoff leaves it’ll be open season on you. Trust me, man. I got you. I’ve never lost anyone I’m supposed to be protecting. Ryan and Ray. We’re the R&R Connection. Think of this friendship like… a train.”

“A train?”

“Yes, a train! And we have no brakes.”

Ryan shook his head. “You’re something else, Ray. But alright. We’re a train with no brakes. I’ll do my best to cover you too.”

“Thanks, man.” He held out his hand and with a roll of his eyes Ryan fist-bumped him. “Now let’s make some fucking bank!”

“Hell yeah.” They slipped in their earpieces so that they could all communicate, revved up the bikes, and followed the cars to the intersection outside the bank. It was a warm summer evening but had a touch of autumn in the air, and Ryan was happier for it. He’d always loved the autumn and out of everything, that, funnily enough, was what started to get him excited for the heist. He was dressed like a madman and there was autumn in the air. He was going to complete a heist and it was going to bring him so high he’d never come down.

They all pulled up outside the bank and that was when it started to go wrong.

Geoff and Michael stepped out of their cars at the same time. “Michael, why are you stopping? You and those two are supposed to be on the other side of the city.”

The light from the setting sun put fire in Michael’s eyes. “Geoff, I want you to listen to me… Don’t make any sudden movements, and I’m sorry.”

“You’re what? Why the fuck would you be–”

A spotlight shone on him then, and all around them cops seemed to fall out of the woodwork. “There have to be thirty,” Ryan murmured to Ray, who had gone very pale.

“Just keep calm and don’t move,” one of the cops shouted, a man about Geoff’s age with glasses and a beard. “We won’t have to shoot if you just–”

“ _Michael_!” Geoff bellowed. “What the _fuck_ did you do?!”

“I have to protect Lindsay!” Michael shouted back, and then Lindsay was shouting too, and it was all somewhat of a mess. The bearded cop was trying to get them to calm down, but no one was having it. Jack was trying to get Geoff to stop screaming, Gavin seemed to be shouting at no one in particular, and Ryan and Ray were left frozen in fear and confusion.

Even then, it probably would have been okay if Geoff hadn’t gone after Michael.

He jumped at him, and Michael looked ready to fight back. Geoff never reached him. The cop fired three times in quick succession, hitting Geoff in the shoulder and back. The third shot missed, but Geoff still crumpled to the ground. The cop lowered his gun, looking a little shocked, as if he’d never done that before.

Ryan had always heard that in times of tragedy, time seemed to slow down. That’s how it always worked in the movies, but that had never been his experience, and it wasn’t this time, either. Time didn’t even offer him the luxury of speeding up. Instead it crawled the same as ever and Ryan was left with a thickness in his throat and the overwhelming desire to save, to help, and the cops didn’t stop him from running over and dropping to his knees because Geoff was there and Geoff was bleeding and Geoff wasn’t moving…

And everyone else was clustered around and Gavin was taking these gasping, shuddering breaths but Ryan didn’t care, he hardly even noticed because Geoff’s breaths were shallow and his blood was on Ryan’s hands and if it weren’t for the stains that would, later, never seem to come out, he couldn’t even tell you if that was literal or metaphorical.

“Hey, whoa, Geoff,” he managed, tearing the mask off so that Geoff could see his face, and he doubted he looked very comforting with his black eye makeup and his useless, comfortless mouth, but it was better than nothing, he hoped. “You’re alright, you’re here. I’m here.”

Geoff’s eyes were closed but his mouth was open and he was trying to speak and Ryan was determined to listen. “I’m here, Geoff, talk to me.”

Geoff’s eyes opened then, blue, blue as the sky and the sea and so much like Ryan’s own. “G-Griffon?” Geoff asked softly, and then there was nothing else but silence and an empty autumn sky.


	7. Epilogue: Sepulchre Down By the Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope you guys enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Gavin walked slowly up the podium of the nearly-empty church. He’d been so used to the idea of death in the group for so long, it was almost a wonder it had taken this long to hit so hard. He and death were old friends, lovers almost, and so he didn’t cry when he looked at Geoff’s body in the sleek pine casket, wearing a suit that didn’t quite fit as well as the one he’d died in.

The Fake AH Crew had only spent the night in jail before Kerry bailed them out, all but Ryan. He refused to come. He took the fall for all the robberies they’d been connected to before, even though the cops agreed that they’d never seen his face or heard his name connected to the Crew before. The trial was next week, they estimated about a year.

But right now, it was three days after that awful Saturday night, and Gavin was wearing the only suit he owned and dress shoes that were slightly too small. If it had been up to him, he’d have just worn his trainers, but Michael told him that he could not. Gavin tried to say, rightly, that Geoff wouldn’t have cared, but then it looked like Michael was going to cry, so Gavin just gave in and shoved on the shoes.

Before he began speaking, he looked out at the small group of people in the audience. Most of them were his fellow Crew members, but there were a few others he mostly didn’t know. He looked for a slender woman with pale blonde hair. She wasn’t there. “Most of you know me, yeah?” he started, and cleared his throat. “Well, I used to keep this secret. Geoff kept it with me, but now– now I’m the only one left who can tell the story, and Geoff always said stories were meant to be told, so– so I guess I’d better tell it.

“I was sixteen, so this was…” He had to think for a second. “Eight years ago. Mum was dead, so it was just me and Dad, living downtown. Not really sure if you can say there’s a ‘bad’ part of Los Santos, but that’s where I was. Geoff was living with Jack at the time and committed a lot of petty crimes for cash. This time it was robbing my house.

“Dad and I… didn’t get along real well. Fought a lot, I got hit sometimes. I just wanted to get out. This time I was upstairs playing some game, don’t even remember it now.” He shook his head. “Then I heard the gunshots. Ran downstairs, saw Geoff with a week’s worth of stubble and holding a smoking pistol with my dad dead on the floor. Geoff looks up at me and says in the calmest voice you ever heard ‘this ain’t what it looks like, kid’.”

He met Jack’s eyes in the audience and smiled. Jack looked as though he was clenching his jaw so as not to tear up but he managed a weak smile back anyway. “Anyone else would cut and run, but Geoff finished robbing my house, wiped his prints, told me to grab my things and come with, because he was my guardian now. He didn’t even ask me to call him ‘Daddy Geoff’.” This time the laugh was Ray’s.

“Well, you guys knew Geoff. That’s probably… that’s the most quintessentially Geoff thing I could think of. He was a good guy, really. Didn’t always have his priorities in order and he had his vices, but he was… he was a good man. Took care of me better than my own father ever did. He gave me everything. He even wanted to keep this a secret because he was ashamed that he’d accidentally killed a man. So I want to end this on an apology or two. First of all, Geoff, I’m sorry, I know you would have wanted a more bitchin’ send off, but this was all I could manage on such short notice. Second of all, I wanted to end my eulogy on a mic drop, but the mic is attached to the podium. So… sorry for that.” Funnily enough, by that point he’d choked up too much to finish anyway.

**One Year Later**

The first thing Ryan Haywood did after being released from prison was shower, shave, and change clothes, but the second thing was walk to the cemetery on the outskirts of town and wander through the overcrowded rows until he found a grave with a clean marble headstone and a bunch of half-dead flowers in front of it.

“G’morning, Geoff,” he said, voice husky from relative disuse. “Guess where I’ve been? Prison. Nice, right? You ever think the guy whose wardrobe was so lame you had to immediately take him shopping would spend a year in the slammer?”

He looked down at the little crystal decanter he held in his hands and set it beside the flowers. “Didn’t know if they allow good whiskey in Heaven, so I thought I’d bring you some. Or maybe you’re in Hell, what do I know. Not like you didn’t do enough to earn it.” He laughed a little. “We all did. Save me a place either way, buddy. I’ll probably end up there soon enough.”

The morning was warm but he wrapped his coat tighter around him. It was wool, nice, the coat he’d used before. He didn’t intend to wear the leather again. “I know you’d have wanted me to stick with the Crew, but I can’t, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen any of them since last year. Maybe one day I’ll call them again. Maybe I’ll hear the phone ringing and not expect you to pick up. Isn’t it funny? So many people pick up vices because they want to forget, but every vice there is reminds me of you. Can’t even smell the smoke from a cigarette without thinking of you.

“I’m hopefully gonna go back to my old job. I don’t know if Lindsay still works there. It would be nice to see her again, but maybe she’ll remind me too much of you. I don’t know. I can’t even look in the mirror without expecting to see your eyes looking back at me. It’s stupid, I know. Ah well.”

He knelt down to touch the headstone, noticing how plain it looked. Geoff joked all the time about the ridiculous shit he wanted on his headstone (and at his funeral; he hadn’t been there, but he hoped Gavin did him justice), but all it said was “Geoffrey L. Ramsey, b. June 19, 1975, d. August 25, 2012,” and below that, just two words in the deep grey stone. Ryan ran his fingers over the letters what must have been ten times before they really sunk in, and when they did, he swallowed back a sob.

_Memento mori._


End file.
